Following the announcement of the design chosen for a Japanese national stadium for the 2020 Olympic Games, the London-based architects’ group who produced the original but later scrapped blueprint said Wednesday that they are looking into the similarities between theirs and the new design.

Architect Kengo Kuma’s team was announced Tuesday as the winner of the competition for the stadium design over architect Toyo Ito, after the original proposal from Zaha Hadid Architects was abandoned in July over rising costs.

A spokesperson for ZHA said, “The design team is currently reviewing the detailed designs and investigating similarities.”

It is unclear whether they will take any legal action. ZHA had informed the Japan Sports Council in August that all of the original plan’s design work was the intellectual property of the architect.

ZHA had already issued a statement following the announcement on Tuesday, claiming there were “remarkable similarities” between their design and the new one, particularly in the detailed stadium layout and seating bowl configuration.

Architect Ito said Tuesday of Kuma’s design, “I wonder if it is almost entirely based on Zaha Hadid’s plan. Its appearance is different, but if you look under the surface, there are details that seem almost unchanged.”

ZHA’s design was renounced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this summer amid public outcry over its ballooning costs, projected to hit 265.1 billion yen ($2.19 billion) or more than double the initial estimate.

Kuma’s winning design will cost an estimated 149 billion yen, with a completion date set at November 2019.

The design was chosen based on an evaluation of nine categories associated with cost, construction period and execution plan.

The steel and wood architecture features a flat roof and sunken seating bowl that will accommodate 80,000 people.

Taisei and Azusa Sekkei, who are part of Kuma’s design team, were also involved in the original design led by Zaha Hadid.

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lol this is stupid. On the inside of the stadium there will of course be unavoidable "similarities." T&F stadiums don't differ too much as far as seat planning go. If this crazy bitch is going to try to sue for those unavoidable "similarities" then the designers of the London and Beijing stadium should come after her in a lawsuit!

It's obvious on the outside they look totally different. She had a turtle design, while the new design has been dubbed a hamburger.

The architects whose design for the original 2020 Tokyo Olympics stadium was scrapped due to ballooning costs say they have rejected a request to give up the copyright to their plans in return for an overdue final payment.

U.K.-based Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) was chosen in an international contest to build the centerpiece stadium, but the much-criticized futuristic design was dropped last year in just one of a series of embarrassments for Tokyo Olympics planners.

A design by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma with a price tag of ¥149 billion ($1.27 billion), as opposed to an estimated ¥252 billion for Hadid’s plans, was chosen last month instead.

“We can confirm that we received and rejected a written request . . . to modify our existing contract to allow the transfer of the copyright of the detailed design for the Japan National Stadium, owned by ZHA, in exchange for an overdue final payment,” the company said in a statement.

It said it had been trying to finalize an outstanding payment for “months of work” with the Japan Sport Council (JSC), the group in charge of the stadium, since October. The amount of the payment was not given.

ZHA’s statement said it had also refused to sign another new clause for the contract, in exchange for the payment, requiring her design team to not “provide information or comment on the project.”

The company said it hoped to resolve the disagreement over intellectual property for the stadium design through discussions.

An official at the JSC confirmed Thursday it was discussing the overdue final payment to ZHA, but gave no details about whether it had asked the company to give up its copyright, or what they were discussing.

“We will proceed in discussions correctly so as not to affect the schedule of the construction of the stadium,” the official said.

The design submitted by Hadid, who designed the aquatics center for the 2012 London Olympics, was slammed by critics for failing to harmonize with its surroundings and derided as reminiscent of a bicycle helmet or a drooping raw oyster.

Kuma’s winning design, which some critics have likened to a stack of pancakes, will be 20 meters lower than the original plan and incorporate wood into the roofing in an effort to blend with its leafy downtown surroundings.

After her original design was rejected as too costly, Hadid complained that the new design borrowed heavily from her earlier work.

Japan’s march to the 2020 Summer Olympics, its second hosting of the sports extravaganza, has been beset by woes including the scrapping of its original logo on accusations of plagiarism only months after the stadium design was dropped.

Construction is scheduled for completion in November 2019, two months ahead of an International Olympic Committee deadline.

The new National Stadium was also supposed to host the 2019 Rugby World Cup opening ceremony and some matches, but the delay in construction made for a switch in venue to Yokohama Stadium, which hosted the 2002 soccer World Cup final.

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Hopefully they can just get the payment resolved quickly so all the loose ends are tied up. She is still claiming that interior technical elements are similar, but in reality there are only so many ways to create a stadium bowl with the given limitations without infringing on structure or sight lines. If she does, for some reason, try to take them to court over the similarities what can she hope to get out of it? Royalties every time someone looks at the bowl?

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Just got back from Guangzhou, and had a close up view of the Hadid-designed Opera House there. It is only five years old, but it is a poorly built, crumbling wasteland of a building, shockingly detailed and water stained. There is a Pizza Hut and Subway jammed into it to add some life (including neon signs).

The multiple curves and angles obviously couldn't be built with the granite cladding specified, so there are gaps, awkward joints and water penetration problems throughout. It has been plagued with cost overruns and repairs.

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Just got back from Guangzhou, and had a close up view of the Hadid-designed Opera House there. It is only five years old, but it is a poorly built, crumbling wasteland of a building, shockingly detailed and water stained. There is a Pizza Hut and Subway jammed into it to add some life (including neon signs).

The multiple curves and angles obviously couldn't be built with the granite cladding specified, so there are gaps, awkward joints and water penetration problems throughout. It has been plagued with cost overruns and repairs.

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Just got back from Guangzhou, and had a close up view of the Hadid-designed Opera House there. It is only five years old, but it is a poorly built, crumbling wasteland of a building, shockingly detailed and water stained. There is a Pizza Hut and Subway jammed into it to add some life (including neon signs).

The multiple curves and angles obviously couldn't be built with the granite cladding specified, so there are gaps, awkward joints and water penetration problems throughout. It has been plagued with cost overruns and repairs.

Tokyo dodged a bullet jettisoning Hadid.

.....yeeeeeessss they DID! All that Zaha crap is just soooo heinous. Thank god somebody (japan) figured out the scam before it was TOO late. The new stadium is a blessing compared to the monstrosity SHE tried to impose on this park.

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Thanks Baron for posting that pic- if you look along the roof 'angles' particularly the white lump you can see the gaps in the cladding aren't even or regular, the angles don't join properly and the panels are already stained in the pic although it is not even finished.

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Just got back from Guangzhou, and had a close up view of the Hadid-designed Opera House there. It is only five years old, but it is a poorly built, crumbling wasteland of a building, shockingly detailed and water stained. There is a Pizza Hut and Subway jammed into it to add some life (including neon signs).

The multiple curves and angles obviously couldn't be built with the granite cladding specified, so there are gaps, awkward joints and water penetration problems throughout. It has been plagued with cost overruns and repairs.

Tokyo dodged a bullet jettisoning Hadid.

It's Well known that opera house wasn't very well built. Hadid buildings which used capable contractors don't have any such problems. I get people didn't like her Tokyo stadium design but the Japanese would have built it properly.

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It's Well known that opera house wasn't very well built. Hadid buildings which used capable contractors don't have any such problems. I get people didn't like her Tokyo stadium design but the Japanese would have built it properly.

There is no guarantee of that, I have seen plenty of poorly built buildings across Tokyo, and there would have been enormous time and budget pressures. All academic now...

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It's Well known that opera house wasn't very well built. Hadid buildings which used capable contractors don't have any such problems. I get people didn't like her Tokyo stadium design but the Japanese would have built it properly.

Her design was just too grandiose and very "un-Japanese-y." The Japanese are also more conservative than, say, the Chinese.

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It's Well known that opera house wasn't very well built. Hadid buildings which used capable contractors don't have any such problems. I get people didn't like her Tokyo stadium design but the Japanese would have built it properly.

That roof cladding was never ever going to work in a real climate, no matter who built it; overlapping roof tiles were invented for very good reasons. Once a single crack opened up by natural temperature-related change in any of the tens of thousands of joints, water would get underneath one panel, then another, then another ....

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Also, having read more into this, it is very strange that they're withholding payment for work already done and saying she'll only get it if she gives up copyright on her designs. Whatever you think of the design and the cost, this doesn't smell right.

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Also, having read more into this, it is very strange that they're withholding payment for work already done and saying she'll only get it if she gives up copyright on her designs. Whatever you think of the design and the cost, this doesn't smell right.

Yeah I had commented on this when I read it on dezeen. In this situation the JSC should pay Zaha for the work she has done, and then negotiate copyrights without that being used as a bargaining chip. I read that a reason they might be doing this is so that the JSC can prevent that stadium being built somewhere else (like China of Qatar, perhaps) but also so that they can use some of the basic plans like the environmental impact studies or whatever else that would be a waste to do a second time for the same project.

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Thanks Baron for posting that pic- if you look along the roof 'angles' particularly the white lump you can see the gaps in the cladding aren't even or regular, the angles don't join properly and the panels are already stained in the pic although it is not even finished.

And I bet it cost $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

And you can tell any of that how? From that distance, at that resolution, using (probably) someone's cell phone camera, there is no possible way.

Maybe NASA or the USAF has the tools. But then, they probably also have experts who would know the difference between a "gap" and an expansion joint. And I bet they even have people who are aware that sometime over the past five years Tokyo has had rain, air pollution, dust...

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And you can tell any of that how? From that distance, at that resolution, using (probably) someone's cell phone camera, there is no possible way.

Maybe NASA or the USAF has the tools. But then, they probably also have experts who would know the difference between a "gap" and an expansion joint. And I bet they even have people who are aware that sometime over the past five years Tokyo has had rain, air pollution, dust...

It is pretty clear that the joints between the tiles are exposed.

I don't think that modern architects are to blame directly. The blame mostly goes to decision makers who want another Guggenheim and don't bother asking questions about the actual execution of it. If you hire an artist to design a roof instead of an engineer and then hire a corrupt construction company to build it, then you deserve what you get.

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And you can tell any of that how? From that distance, at that resolution, using (probably) someone's cell phone camera, there is no possible way.

Maybe NASA or the USAF has the tools. But then, they probably also have experts who would know the difference between a "gap" and an expansion joint. And I bet they even have people who are aware that sometime over the past five years Tokyo has had rain, air pollution, dust...

Because I took a detailed tour of the building om December 31 2015, including close observation , with a telephoto lens, of the ground and roof elevations. If I knew how to post photos I would.

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....Or there are 'natural' expansion joints; and I know in an apartment building I used to live in, there were so-called 'earthquake stress' joints/gaps that allow for structures to release that earthquake energy in a controlled way.

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I don't think that modern architects are to blame directly. The blame mostly goes to decision makers who want another Guggenheim and don't bother asking questions about the actual execution of it. If you hire an artist to design a roof instead of an engineer and then hire a corrupt construction company to build it, then you deserve what you get.

Yes it may appear, and certainly based on this photo, that the panels are not abutting. I would propose two explanations, in addition to the one asserted that construction is poor.

1) There may be a "reveal" designed into the panels, i.e. (and sorry I don't know the exact word) there is a flange that slips under the neighboring panel. So, yes, even though there is a space between them on their top surfaces (and to a certain depth of, say 1cm), they are actually touching, or joined, at the underside of the panel. Thus there is continuous panel material across the entire roof, i.e. no actual "gaps" or voids. If indeed this is the design, then lateral movement due to heat/cold expansion/contraction would be accommodated.

2) There is no such flange and there is indeed a gap. Thus the panel is not meant as a rain screen but only as a sun screen (and, of course, an aesthetic element). There would be a subroof beneath the panels that would capture and shed the rain.

Mind you, not knowing the product or design used in this project I am only speculating. I do find it highly, highly unlikely that in just the photo you have included there are something like several hundred (!) leaky gaps. True, the contractors in China are not that great (compare Japan!) but they are not that terrible, either. Nor, at the risk of offending the Zaha haters, could one surmise that the design is so deficient from a firm that has probably among the most talented architects available for hire, who have done scores of high profile projects all across the world. All this, or course, would not rule out a roof leak or two in a project such as this. I don't know and neither would anyone know, based solely on these photos. No way to tell.

As to your last sentence, in any part of the developed world with which I am familiar, it is the architect that designs the roof, not an engineer, and certainly not an artist; manufacturers and contractors may be consulted, but it is the architect's expertise. It is complement from you to refer to Hadid (and her team!) as artists-- they would appreciate the complement and may even think of themselves that way, too-- but first and foremost they are architects. Art is an aspect of architecture, as is engineering, but it is distinct.